Europe’s fastest growing airline - Adria

Adria Airways flight crew have a reson to smile

Due to excellent results in 2008, Slovenia’s Adria Airways has gained the title of Europe’s fastest growing airline in 2008, managing to beat 31 other airlines including carriers such as Lufthansa, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, SAS, Ibearia and other major international carriers which expand on a daily level. Adria had a 16.7% growth rate in passenger figures in 2008 in front of second placed Ukrainian AeroSvit Airlines, which grew 16.5% and B&H Airlines’ new owner – Turkish Airlines, which managed third place with a 15.6% growth rate.

In the last month of 2008 most European airlines saw a large drop in passenger numbers, with the Greek Olympic having the largest drop of 20%. Adria did well with only a 1.3% drop while the two other members from the former Yugoslavia that are part of the AEA (Association of European Airlines), Croatia Airlines and Jat Airways had mixed results. Croatia did extremely well managing to become one of the rare European airlines to have a rise in passenger numbers in December 2008 of 8.3%. Jat Airways saw a hefty drop of 10%.

Adria’s good results can be partially thanked due the Slovenian 6 month presidency over the European Union, which saw business travel drastically increase. The results for January 2009 are expected to be very bad for Adria which is why the airline has still not announced their figures for the first month of the year. The only 2 airlines from the former Yugoslavia which have announced their January 2009 results are Jat Airways and Montenegro Airlines. The Association of European Airlines recently announced that the number of passengers transported by its 32 member companies was down 5.4 million in 2008 to 366 million, marking the first retreat during an economic crisis. The AEA said over the last 25 years, the figures had only decreased when the nuclear power plant melted down in Chernobyl and after the September 11 attacks.